The Reluctant Stowaway”

10 Episode 1: “The Reluctant Stowaway” Written by ShimonCUSHMAN Wincelberg (as S.Bar-David) (Script polishing by Anthony Wilson) Directed by Anton M. Leader (as Tony Leader) Produced by Buck Houghton (uncredited), with Jerry Briskin; Executive Producer: Irwin Allen Plot outline from Lost in Space show files (Irwin Allen Papers Collection): In 1997, from the now desperately overcrowded Earth, the Robinson family and their pilot set off in the Jupiter 2 spaceship, as pioneers to colonize a distant planet circling Alpha Centauri. At blast-off, Smith, agent of an enemy power, who has programmed the Jupiter 2’s Robot to destroy the ship, is trapped aboard. The Robot is de-activated before completely carrying out his orders, but the ship is damaged and now far off-course, lost in another galaxy. Robinson is outside trying to mend the damaged scanner when his tether breaks, leaving him floating helplessly in space. MARC 249 (Episode numbering and the order in which they are presented in this book are by air date. For Seasons One and Two it is also the order in which the episodes were produced. Lost in Space was unique in that it is one of the few filmed primetime series which – until the third season – aired its episodes in the order they were produced. This was done because each episode during the first two seasons was linked to the one which followed by means of the cliffhanger, and each cliffhanger had to be factored in to the overall running time of the episode.) From the Script: (Rev. Shooting Final draft teleplay, July 22, 1965 draft) – Smith: “Aeolis 14 Umbra, come in please. Do you read me? Mission accomplished. (a short, dry laugh) “Mission accomplished!” What do I do now? (bitterly) What clever instructions do you have for me now? How much more money are you going to pay me for this excursion? Aeolis 14 Umbra, do you know where I am? Do you know? Do you know?” – Will: “My dad said you were left aboard when you came down here to adjust the helium-nitrogen intake…” Smith (vaguely): “That’s right.” Will: “But the helium- nitrogen intake valve is on the upper level.” Smith: “Oh? Well, who said anything about the intake valve? … It’s the emergency supply I was concerned about.” Will: “Then I’d better go up and tell them they were wrong about you.” Smith: “‘Wrong?’ Why, what did they say?” Will: “Oh, Major West said, when he went to cadet school, an excuse like that wouldn’t have got him out of Sunday chapel.” Smith (glancing up balefully): “He said that, did he? Well, that’s the military mind for you … ‘Kill or be killed,’ that’s all they understand.” – Smith (aghast): “I must have been blind not to spot it before take-off.” Will: “I thought freezing kills any virus.” Smith (tolerantly): “You ‘thought’. A good thing I’m the doctor and not you. You know what that virus would have done, while the rest of your body was in a state of metabolic de-animation? Just taken it over, bit by bit! After five years, there’d be nothing left of youCUSHMAN but the metal on your space suit. All the rest of you would be one big raging mass of virus.” – Maureen (to Robinson): “Don’t you have an opinion?” Robinson: “I do not. Not until we’ve checked every component, inside and out, and know just where we stand.” Maureen (challengingly): “And then…?” Robinson: “Then I’d let the computer make the final decision.” Maureen: “And will the computer also take into consideration a man’s love and concern for his family? Or has that all been put into cold storage for the duration?” Robinson (sternly): “Maureen, you knew perfectly well what you were getting into.” Maureen (to Smith): “Colonel Smith, could it be that certain parts of the body don’t reanimate as quickly as the rest? The heart, for instance?” Assessment: We hadn’t seen anything like it on television. In the early and mid-1950s, there had been several ultra-cheap sci-fi kiddie shows, usually televised in the late afternoons, such as Space Patrol (1950-55); Buck Rogers (1950); Tom Corbett, Space Cadet (1950- MARC 250 55); Commander Cody: Sky Marshall of the Universe (1953); Flash Gordon (1954-55); Rocky Jones, Space Ranger (1954); and the “Supermarionation” process of Gary and Sylvia Anderson, commencing with 1962’s Fireball XL5. In primetime, there were a handful of episodes of The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits that depicted astronauts traveling the cosmos. But no one had attempted on a weekly basis in the 1960s to depict men in space, or on alien worlds, on the scale of Irwin Allen with Lost in Space. On Wednesday, September 15, 1965, we witnessed the lift off. For those of us in front of our television sets that night, it was a treat we wouldn’t soon forget. The concept to take Swiss Family Robinson into outer space was a brilliant one. The idea of a family with young children facing this adventure together seemed too good to be true for the Baby Boomers among the television audience. Throw in a claw-handed robot, and a villainous saboteur, and there was no other show on TV that was going to please the kids as much as this. Star Trek was still a year away. Who, other than Gene Roddenberry, could even imagine that? For the time being, we were happy to be lost in space. This first episode had it all: parents and children encased in freezing tubes; a robot gone berserk; a flying saucer battered by meteorites; and, at the end, the father of the intrepid family helplessly drifting away into space. The production values and the special effects were first rate. By the time the picture froze, and the words flew onto the screen telling the audience to tune in the following week, same time, same channel, we were hooked. An hour had rarely sped by faster. Script: Story Assignment 8541 (Production #8501) Shimon Wincelberg’s treatment, and 1st and 2nd draft teleplays: May 1965. Reformatted Mimeo Department Shooting Final teleplay: June 1965. Tony Wilson’s script polish (Rev. Shooting Final teleplay): Late June 1965. CUSHMANWilson’s further polish (2nd Revised Shooting Final, on blue paper): July 8, 1965. Page revisions by Wilson (pink page inserts): July 14. Additional revisions by Wilson (yellow page inserts): July 15. Additional revisions by Wilson (green page inserts): July 16. Additional revisions by Wilson (gold page inserts): July 22. When Shimon Wincelberg returned to convert his pilot script into the series opener, his assignment was to break up the original action sequences so they could be spread over several episodes. It was only after he began rewriting that it was decided to introduce two new characters – Colonel Smith and the Robot. Wincelberg recalled, “Tony Wilson had the idea: ‘Why don’t we bring in a character somewhat like Long John Silver, who would be kind of a treacherous, MARC 251 hitchhiking fellow traveler whom they couldn’t get rid of, and who was full of ideas for mischief, and who also would form a relationship where he was more of a father figure for the little boy than the father was, who was pretty straight. And I immediately saw the value of this, and wrote another draft of the script. At first, I had kind of an exotic name for Dr. Smith – something like Asgard; a name out of Nordic mythology. I was always doing research in books like that. And again, Irwin said, ‘No. Call him a straightforward American name.’ So, I called him Dr. Smith. And I think he was right about that.” (SW- KB95) With his choice for the character’s first name, Wincelberg snuck in a bit of the exotic nonetheless. He would be Zachary Smith. As for the Robot, that idea went back to the pilot, although due to time restraints and mounting costs it was dropped. Wincelberg divulged, “The Robot was in there to begin with. It was part of the original concept that Irwin gave me.” (SW-KB95) Wincelberg’s story and script was a vast improvement over the pilot script he had written with Allen from the latter’s story, which presented characters lacking in dimension. There is more warmth between the family here, and a sense of fun in scenes such as when the gravity is turned off and the children experience weightlessness. Also, there is more emotion from the characters, such as when John Robinson and the children react to Maureen collapsing after exiting the freezing tube. Also added: conflict, as played between Major West, along with the entire Robinson family, and Smith. The antagonist Zachary Smith and his Frankenstein’s monster – the Robot – added greatly to the drama, even serving as the catalyst for turning Robinson against Robinson, as Maureen asks the not-so-good doctor if some parts of the human body are slower to be reanimated after freezing, such as her husband’s heart. Betrayal, always a good ingredient in drama, is provided by Smith, an Air Force Colonel and doctor who has sold out his country, as well as the space travelers. Another excellent dramatic device added into the episode is the irony of a traitor’s entrapment on the very ship he has sabotaged. Situational comedy is present too, as the characters struggled against weightlessness, and in a scene masterfully played between Harris and Mumy as the doctor claims to spot a bit of virus on CUSHMANthe boy’s tongue.

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